Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a supply management system for a network of document output devices requiring replenishment supply parts for replacing consumable materials, and more particularly a managed print services (MPS) system for analyzing, optimizing and managing the network of document output devices.
Related Art
Inventory tracking systems for monitoring consumable supplies for document output devices have been known for decades, such as the monitoring and ordering system described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,305,199. Over the years, improvements continue to be made to the ordering and replenishment of consumable supplies. Centralized tracking systems now monitor supply part inventories that are consumed throughout fleets of machines based on usage data that the systems receive from the networked document output devices. Automatic or semi-automatic ordering is provided via interactive communication systems. Order confirmation, projected shipment dates and shipment confirmations can be provided from the reorder sites. These systems can also provide inventory monitoring customized to local networks. Systems provide assistance in the ordering of supplies and also generate pricing data for an entire fleet of devices, such as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,043,523 and 7,127,433, respectively.
Most supplies replenishment processes require the end user to identify a supply needs to be replenished, determine the appropriate replacement supply part number, determine how to place the order, then manage a manual process of tracking the replenishment. Often, this means the consumable supply item is depleted before a replacement supply is ordered and arrives, usually resulting in the machine operators maintaining a significant amount of safety stock which is subject to shrinkage. Other times, the machine operators reorder the incorrect supply which increases supply chain costs significantly.
For resellers and MPS providers who offer to “manage” the end user's supplies replenishment remotely, they only have rudimentary supplies percentage information, which may be limited to only some brands and models and which is not an accurate way to determine when the supply is requiring replenishment. Those resellers and MPS providers who merely rely on a supply items' “percent remaining” readings taken from document output devices have no automated way to determine whether a supply truly needs to be replaced. For example, a supply can fall below a threshold percent remaining value which triggers an order and shipment of the replacement supply by a current MPS provider's system. After the replacement supply is shipped, the system may then receive an increased supply reading over the trigger threshold which causes the system to reset for the next time the supplies drop below the trigger threshold. However, this reset may actually be caused by user behavior (i.e., removing the supply, rocking it, and replacing it), which would have produced a false-positive indication that the replacement supply had been placed in the machine. Before the replacement supply arrives, the low supply could again drip below the trigger threshold which could result in double shipments of the replacement supply.
Additionally, apart from the system provided by the present invention, MPS providers do not have any automated way to check for other supplies that could be close to their replacement trigger threshold. One supply item could reach its replacement trigger threshold in the beginning of a week and another three supply items could reach their replacement trigger thresholds by the end of the week or in the next week. Without a predictive supply replenishment system that is based on the days remaining of the supply items, current MPS systems do not provide an optimized solution for efficiently resupplying the document output devices.
Another problem with current managed print services is that there is no robust, automated system which allows MPS providers to manage their entire MPS process with a consistent set of data. To best plan for and execute an MPS solution, MPS providers need consistent datasets from the evaluation stage for a potential new customer, into the creation of a deal with MPS solution proposals that can be automatically generated and revised based on these datasets, and through to the services provided for a selected MPS solution that is designed for the particular customer and which assists the MPS provider with automatic notices based on dataset updates.